Project: Lazarus, Parts 3 and 4

Main Range #45

Released: 23 June 2003

Listened: 2/21/21

One of the oddities of this project is that stories recorded years apart, and in a different order, but with similar themes, bump up next to each other. In this case, having recently listened to the Doctor fight vampires in “An Alien Werewolf in London,” I’m dropped back into a story with Nimrod. In addition, the Doctor should sound older and more reflective, but he sounds notably younger than he did with Mags. But we need to put that aside for the sake of the project. This is the second part of a story begun in the Sixth Doctor’s era (which I listened to half a year ago), and as usual it’s really best to listen to the whole thing together, but that’s not the way I created this project. The Seventh Doctor comes in on Nimrod’s project after the Sixth has supposedly left...except the Sixth Doctor is apparently still working as the Forge’s scientific advisor, much to the Seventh Doctor’s surprise. There’s little time for the usual multi-Doctor sparring and quipping, because this Sixth Doctor seems tentative and unsure of himself, and the Seventh Doctor smells a rat immediately. Because this is only half a story, there’s not a lot of plot to unravel, and really the Seventh Doctor is just a plot device to allow the Sixth to resolve some feelings. Colin Baker comes out ahead here, getting to play an “off” version of his Doctor, and then later doing and saying things that the Doctor wouldn’t. This was probably intended to be an ending for the Forge, but of course it doesn’t stay that way.